At the Shandong Provincial Hospital in Jinan, Shandong Province, there was a doctor who was very popular with patients. He made careful inquiries, prescribed few drugs, and served warmly. He is Chen Lihui, the deputy chief physician of the Rheumatology and Immunology Department of the hospital.

Chen Lihui has been a doctor for 29 years. He first worked in the emergency center of Shandong Provincial Hospital and then in the Rheumatology and Immunology Department. He has rich experience in the treatment of various systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and various difficult and miscellaneous diseases.

Chen Lihui (middle) is working. Courtesy of Shandong Provincial Hospital

A few years ago, a woman on crutches was helped into Chen Lihui's outpatient room. The woman's surname was Dai. For many years, she had pain in her joints, which led to walking difficulties, accompanied by inexplicable fever. Her family took her to many hospitals across the province for diagnosis and treatment, but no cause was found.

Chen Lihui conducted a comprehensive examination of the patient, and finally confirmed that Dai suffered from systemic lupus erythematosus, a persistent disease that is difficult to cure. According to the treatment plan, the patient needs to return to the hospital one month later. Considering the patient's difficulty in walking on crutches, and hearing from the patient that his home is in a rural area, the economic conditions at home are not very good. Chen Lihui thought: If I leave WeChat to the patient, I can know the patient's condition at any time through WeChat. If it is not necessary, the patient can reduce the back and forth? So he and Dai added WeChat to each other. With the careful treatment of Chen Lihui, Dai's condition has improved significantly.

Chen Lihui has left his own WeChat messages to more than 2000 patients whose families are far away from Jinan and whose mobility is difficult or whose economic conditions are poor. He answers the patient's inquiries through WeChat at any time, and has become the patient's "family doctor", but he has not charged the patient a penny for it. Some patients feel very sorry, and he politely declined to invite him to dinner or send him a red envelope. "I accepted the patient's kindness, but if I accept a meal invitation or a red envelope, the nature will change!" Chen Lihui said.

Answering the patient's consultation and communicating with the patient about the disease treatment took up a lot of Chen Lihui's spare time. Some colleagues do not understand this, and others think that he is too stupid to leave a WeChat message to patients that "nothing makes trouble for themselves". To this, Chen Lihui just smiled slightly: "In fact, I talked with the patient through WeChat, and based on the patient's situation, I can basically determine whether it is necessary to let the patient come to the hospital for further consultation. For those patients who do not need to come to the hospital for further consultation, there is no need to let the patient go back and forth." Chen Lihui said that he accepted the patient's consultation by leaving WeChat with the patient, Not only does it save the patient from the pain of traveling back and forth, but also he can know the patient's condition at any time and adjust the treatment plan in a targeted and timely manner, which not only facilitates the patient's treatment, but also accumulates valuable clinical experience.

It is worth mentioning that "no big prescription" is one of Chen Lihui's tenets. Once, a patient with a drug price list said to him in doubt: "Doctor Chen, how can you prescribe a medicine worth more than ten yuan? Can you treat this disease? I am at least a few hundred yuan in other hospitals. If you prescribe some expensive medicine for me, I am not afraid of spending money." Chen Lihui patiently said to the patient: "Your disease can be cured with these drugs, why spend more money wrongly?"

"As a doctor, we should try our best to cure the patient's disease. Let the patient look after the disease with less money, which is the creed I have been practicing in medicine for more than 20 years." Chen Lihui said. (Kang Peng Ge Hongpu)